Marvel
unleashed the first teaser image for the new rebooted/relaunched Marvel U this morning, and it contains SHOCKS—Agent Coulson? Red Wolf?—SURPRISES—No X-men or FF characters!!!—and the status quo—Miles Morales, She Thor and Sam Wilson as Captain America!

WHAT WHO HOW? Is it a reboot or a relaunch? Marvel E-I-C Axel Alonso made the press rounds with Mashable, EW and USA Today revealing that Marvel will launch 55 to 60 ALL NEW #1 issues with new versions of some old favorites and a new look universe. The story picks up eight months after the end of Secret Wars in MU time, fall Human time. The new #1 will roll out over a several month period, unlike the ice water dunk of the New 52. But as David Gabriel put it:

“This is going to be an absolute game changer for Marvel,” added David Gabriel, SVP of Sales & Marketing. “Similar to the most successful comics industry program of this century—Marvel NOW!, All-New All-Different Marvel is going to be presenting fans new #1’s for every title coming out during this event. This is a brand new beginning that honors our past 76 years, yet takes a bold step with daring, and accessible, entry points.”

So yes, Marvel is finally doing the New 52 reboot we predicted a long time ago. And as we predicted, they would do soft reboots for a long time (Marvel Now, All-New MArvel Now, etc.), until that didn’t work any more—and then a DiDio styled time jump reboot, with a “One Year Later” type mystery as to how things got to be this way, as Gabriel explains. “The real beauty of that is if you’re one of these fans who’ve been around for many years, it’s a great, exciting mystery. And if you’re these new fans who maybe only jumped in this year when you saw the Avengers movie, you’ll be able to pick up any of these comics and you will not need to know 50 years of backstory of anybody.”

Everyone wins!

So what do we know and when do we know it?

From Mashable:

“We’ve been planning it for years,” Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso told Mashable. “We realized that [‘Secret Wars’] would be a game-changing moment that would allow us to create a big white canvas. It’s an unprecedented chance for us to tell new stories across all titles with new No. 1s.”

Alonso told USA Today:

“We’ve put the onus on the creators to come up with big changes in the lives of our characters, whether it’s Spider-Man or Ms. Marvel or Daredevil or the Hulk,” says Marvel editor in chief Axel Alonso. “You’re going to be looking at, in certain cases, new characters inhabiting those roles, and new characters dealing with profound changes in the relationships with others around them and where they live.

And here’s some factoids;

• The rewrite will not erase history, so your FF #1 still happened if anyone is allowed to mention it.

• An all-new Hulk will terrify the internet. “This character is certain to cause debate. The same people who went crazy with female Thor will have a field day with this one.”

• It sounds like both Spideys—Peter Parker and Miles Morales—will stick around.

• Wolverine has escaped the ban on characters owned by other movie studios…or has he? “Wolverine will return to the Marvel Universe (again, this will be something big). Who is Wolverine? You’ll have to read and find out.” Accoridng to USA Today there will be a “new Wolverine.” So, bub, you were killed by the one thing no one saw coming, Fox Studios.

• Red Wolf is a new version of a Native American character Marvel introduced in the 70s. Proving no matter how much time passes, indigenous heroes must carry a bow and arrow. I hope he smokes a peace pipe too!

• In his EW interview, Alonso teased a “seasonal” model for comics, similar to what HBO does:

And that said, most importantly, I think that the comics industry—certainly, we are—slowly working into a season model that’s not too unlike what we see in our favorite cable TV shows: a seasonal model that offers accessible entry points for new readers and is respectful of long-term fans. We did Marvel NOW! and All-New Marvel NOW!, which were both two very successful campaigns. And this is the latest campaign. The goal is to invite a new audience while maintaining and honoring the fans who are already reading. So this fall, this All-New All-Different Marvel is going to unveil somewhere around 60 titles, all new #1s. And nothing says “jumping point” like the #1. And all of them, I think, all are going to offer diverse, exciting and accessible entry points into our world. And there’ll be a lot of different flavors.

• And if you thought female Thor was the harbinger of a ruined, debased society, well guess what hatahs…IT WORKED.

And the thing is, when we look at the way that All-New Thor connected with readers—I just had Margaret Stohl, who wrote the Black Widow novel, in my office about ten minutes ago. She was in and we were just chatting, and it was interesting because she was saying how deeply the female Thor connects with her kid and her kid’s friends and her daughter, and she just went on and on. And how that character resonated with fans was an incredible validation for us. Because as we were doing it and we knew it was a risk, it was a chance. It was rooted in story, but at the end of the day, we didn’t really care what was going on in the movie. We saw the power of challenging readers to look at Thor in a new way, and the notion of being worthy. And I’ll just say that I’m really excited with the way that people have embraced that. And the strength was rooted in story, and that’s why I’m confident about these things I’m alluding to in the future, these changes we’re making in the Marvel Universe. They’re rooted in story and we’re going to back it up the same way we did with the female Thor or Ms. Marvel.

Now there is apparently some internet chatter about whether this is a reboot a relaunch or just a pizza party.

https://twitter.com/stevewmorris/status/606480893180559360

The concern over whether or not Marvel is rebooting is ridiculous. Spoilers: it really doesn't matter, they're all made up.

Does it really matter? I say thee nay. What does matter is that aside from Wolverine, not a single mention of the character controlled by other studios, even Deadpool. It’s going to be an interesting ride for the next few months.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

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Comments

Lapsed Marvel Zombie here.
How did I kick the habit? Well, I had a limited budget, and too much stuff I wanted to read.
Eventually, I realized I didn’t miss the Marvel titles I had to postpone purchasing, and left most of it behind.
One example: X-Men, Siege Perilous. All of the characters I liked disappeared, replaced by B-level characters. Why continue reading?
So, yeah, this might encourage more readers to try the comics, but with the New 52, the Marvel NOWs, the old talent on new titles, and the necessity of having everything in the same universe… I don’t know if it will work. There will be first-issue-fatigue. There will be fans who decide to quit a title (or decide that the Distinguished Competition has more interesting titles).

What this is… the “architects” are dismantling the House of Ideas, then using the salvageable bits to build a new House of Ideas.

Heh.. I actually became a Marvel Zombie because of the original Secret Wars and Spidey’s new costume. I have a copy of that 1985 ad where Spidey, Cap, Thor, Iron Man show off their “new look”. She-Hulk gave new excitement to the Fantastic Four. So maybe there is a new middle-schooler ready to get hooked…

They will have nearly 60 titles. I’m pretty sure the X-Men and FF are in there somewhere. Marvel just won’t hype them, that’s all. Perhaps they’re making this new Wolverine not a mutant, a la Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.